Kriegskinder als Psychoanalytiker

A part of the research project made at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München about Childhood during World War II is reported here about the comments of psychoanalysts who were children at the time of World War II, about their life story, their individual development, their psychoanalytic socialization and their present professional practice. Special attention is paid to the question whether and how the war and National Socialism have influenced training analysis as it is represented in the memory of the former analysands, in which war and National Socialism represent a common experiential background both of analysands and training analysts.     

Gutachtenleitfaden

The article presents an operationalized and manualized approach for the assessment of the capability of performance. This manual has been conceptualized and tested empirically by a multicentric and interdisciplinary workgroup. It is basically oriented to the “International Classification of Functioning” (ICF; WHO), which is well accepted for assessing the course of chronic diseases and the consequences for the individual. It is especially widely applied in the context of rehabilitation. The different diagnostic levels of the manual and their operationalization are outlined. Furthermore, the first results concerning reliability, content validity, applicability and practicability are described and questions on the areas of application of the instrument are discussed.     

Professionalisierung der Supervision

Supervision is a central domain of professional education and clinical practice. Supervisors features for qualification as well as formal training standards have been largely neglected. In this article the proposals of different psychotherapeutic societies concerning the features for qualification are discussed. Additionally, some training concepts are presented. Suggestions for future development in this area are addressed including the need to refine further operationalized competence, develop conditions for accreditation and certification regarding supervision competencies.     

Zukunft der Psychotherapie in der Psychiatrie

The conceptual development of the German mental health system can only be understood against the background of the specific historical development process; therefore, the emigration of psychodynamic psychotherapists during the Third Reich as well as the complicated reintegration of psychotherapy into psychiatry during the postwar period are of particular relevance. The current discussion concerning the relationship of psychiatry and psychotherapy is characterized by the development of new techniques and methods and the concept of modular psychiatry, whereas the traditional complex psychotherapeutic procedures are becoming less important. In the future, the development of clinical and scientific research should focus on psychotherapy in old age as well as adolescence psychotherapy, the combination of psychopharmacological and psychotherapeutic treatment and issues concerning chronic courses as well as resistance to therapy.     

Distance‐Based Measures of Specialization and Balance in Multi‐Criteria: A DEA‐Integrated Method

Decision makers pursuing several distinct goals may differ in their behaviour. Some try to achieve all goals simultaneously, whereas others concentrate on only certain ones and are therefore specialized. We present a new method of measuring the specialization degree with respect to a given standard balanced relation of the goals. The measurement is integrated into data envelopment analysis (DEA) methodology, uses a non‐compensative distance measure, permits optional convex polyhedral cones as predefined balance sets and guarantees feasible solutions. Geometrically, it is based on the angle between the balance cone and the ray through the point of investigation. The proposed models can be used to support and complement the usual effectiveness and efficiency analysis in multi‐criteria decision analysis and DEA. They are motivated and illustrated by a simple numerical example, compared with an alternative method recently published and applied to real data from the literature. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The corrective effects of warning on false memories in the DRM paradigm are limited to full attention conditions

Effects of attention control and forewarning on the activation and monitoring of experimentally induced false memories in the Deese/Roediger-McDermott paradigm were investigated in a young adult sample (N=77). We found that reducing the degree of attention during encoding led to a decrease in veridical recall and an increase in non-presented critical lure intrusions. This effect could not be counteracted by a forewarning instruction. However, these findings did not emerge in a (retrieval supportive) recognition task. It seems that divided attention increases false recall when attention control and forewarning have to compete for limited cognitive resources in a generative free recall as opposed to a retrieval supportive recognition task. Forewarning instructions do not always protect young adults against experimentally induced false memories.     

Autobiographical memory specificity after manipulating retrieval cues in adults reporting childhood sexual abuse

Traumatized samples have relative difficulty in generating specific autobiographical memories on a cue word task, compared to nonexposed controls. Simultaneously, trauma is associated with highly specific intrusive trauma memories in day-to-day life. Possibly, day-to-day intrusions and memories generated to cue words rely on different retrieval processes, with the former dependent on close associations between retrieval cues and specific memory representations (direct retrieval), and the latter on iterative retrieval cycles through a hierarchical memory system (generative retrieval). This study investigated this distinction using two versions of the cue word task, designed to promote generative and direct retrieval, respectively, in participants with or without a history of child sexual abuse (CSA). The data demonstrated that CSA participants were less specific than nonabused controls to generative retrieval cues, but this difference disappeared with direct retrieval cues. This interaction was stronger in CSA participants with relatively greater posttraumatic stress and remained significant when participants with past or current major depressive disorder were excluded and also when only those participants with corroborated CSA were included.     

The Impact of Perceived Justice on Contingent Value Judgments1

We asked citizens suffering from road traffic about their willingness to pay for the building of a new road bypassing their home village. Opponents of the project were asked what they would consider adequate compensation for accepting the bypass. The perceived fairness of a monetary exchange was the only predictor for the decision in principle to pay or to claim compensation, whereas the exact amount was determined by the expected utility provided by the bypass. Norms of equity or equality introduced in 2 experimental priming conditions biased respondents' willingness to pay. We suggest feeding back the results of contingent valuation surveys into the public debate, instead of interpreting them as a static measure of economic preferences.